A court in Duesseldorf is considering the fate of a former New York resident accused of mass murder while she was a Nazi concentration camp guard. The case involves Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan, 61, who has been identified by former inmates of Maidanek as having participated in the execution of women and children and the selection of prisoners for the gas chambers at the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Mrs. Ryan, who married an American after World War II and was extradited from the U.S. almost eight years ago, is accused with eight other former SS guards in what has become the longest Nazi war crimes trial. It has lasted for five-and-a-half years.
A defense lawyer asked the court this week to free Mrs. Ryan, claiming that witnesses had not proved that she had taken part in the alleged atrocities and could not make a positive identification. The lawyer also tried to get her acquitted on grounds that she was being tried twice for the same crime.
Mrs. Ryan was sentenced to three years in prison by a court in Vienna in 1946 on charges which included torture and mistreatment of prisoners in Maidanek and in the Ravensbrueck concentration camp where she had worked since 1939 before being transferred to Maidanek.
However, the prosecution claimed that the Vienna court case and the present case involve different charges. The prosecution has asked for life imprisonment for Mrs. Ryan for being directly involved in the murder of 100 children and the selection of 1,080 prisoners in Maidanek to be gassed in 1943.
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